"Don your cape, don your shoes." - Ann Powers ![]() "The train has pulled into the station," she sings about the passage of time and the need to act despite its toll. In the gemlike, Chekhov-inspired "The Cherry Orchard," DeMent looks across the span of her 62 years at young political idealists and warns them against ideologues - yet sends them forth, to fight despite the odds. DeMent counters spirited calls to action like "Warriors of Love" and critiques like "Let Me Be Your Jesus" with golden insights into the beauty and pain of our shared inescapable mortality. Her stepdaughter (and album co-producer) Pieta Brown encouraged DeMent to shape songs from her anxieties and hopes about the current mess of global crises they headed to Nashville and gathered a band that does full justice to music with the warmth of folk, the reach of gospel and the homespun sagacity of classic country. With Workin' on a World, Iris DeMent - steward of one of the most treasured and timeless voices inhabiting our moment - brings disinformation-addled listeners back to such intimate realms. Political awareness often begins at the kitchen table, in the living room, even at the family piano. Iris DeMent Workin' on a World Release Date: February 24 Like that Americana innovator, Esperanza reimagines the past in ways that feel almost futuristic - beyond categories, beyond eras. ![]() The granddaughter of Paloma McLardy, drummer for The Raincoats and The Slits, Esperanza embraces the impiety that is her punk inheritance, but she also values the beauty of her burnished contralto and the funky lyricism she shares with her mentor, Valerie June. ![]() "Three Straight Bitches From Hell" somehow marries Gil Scott-Heron's flow with PJ Harvey's drive as Esperanza calls out the women who've broken her heart. But the portal is unstable: Is this the croon of a cabaret singer in Weimar Berlin, all smoke and decadence? Or are we in one of the jazz clubs where Nina Simone staged her arched-eyebrow protests? At one point on Terror, her debut album, this young queer biracial woman raised in Cape Cod sings from the perspective of the Harlem bookstore owner Lewis Michaux, who was born in the last years of the 19th century, yet her "Lewis" has the patchouli scent of classic Erykah Badu. Someone coming to Tianna Esperanza's music without knowing her story might think they've been transported through time. Tianna Esperanza Terror Release Date: February 17 Stream The Latin Dead's Eyes of the World.Bob Weir recently announced he would abandon the rock format to use a symphony orchestra to explore the band's music in that light, The Latin Dead's approach adds another path on the long, strange trip that is the Grateful Dead. For an Afro Caribbean music-loving Deadhead like me, this album is a dream come true. The Latin Dead's Eyes of the World is a collection of tightly arranged interpretations that reveal the nuances of melody and composition that sometimes gets taken for granted during long jams. Guitarist John Kadlecik, who comes from the post-Grateful Dead musical circle (Further, Dark Star Orchestra, Melvin Seals & JGB), teamed up with Oscar Hernández, a pianist/composer/arranger/producer and leader of Spanish Harlem Orchestra, for an innovative run through Dead's music that has been approached from all kinds of directions except this one. Nearly three decades after Jerry Garcia's death, interest in the Grateful Dead's songbook has never waned in fact, it has only grown over time. The Latin Dead Eyes of the World Release Date: February 14 ![]() Altogether, this collection of melodic stunts brings a whole new meaning to the old adage of "Smooth seas never made a skilled sailor." -Sidney Madden Though SOS landed right at the end of 2022, SZA has bobbed and buoyed all 2023 with record-breaking sales, chart-dominating singles, an international arena tour and yet another wave of Grammy nominations. She offsets a sanguine outlook on love ("Snooze") with odes to bloody revenge ("Kill Bill"), indie-pop angst ("Ghost in the Machine"), acoustic toxicity ("Nobody Gets Me") and bad bitch mood boosting ("Smoking on my Ex Pack") - every track is another jewel to her crown. Solána Rowe herself is no longer the second-guessing 20-something of Ctrl days, and her sophomore release, SOS, proves it by pulling no punches. In an industry that runs on facades of perfection, Gen Z fawners have dubbed SZA "mother" for her blunt, sometimes-contradictory but always-gnawingly-honest lyrics set to lilting harmonies. Six years ago, SZA completely changed the trajectory of R&B and a generation.
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